Last week I began the first of a two-part series on how Gikomba market is the exemplification of Kenya’s entrepreneurial spirit. The only time the word “poverty” should be used in the same sentence as Gikomba is that there is a significant poverty of infrastructure conversely met by a wealth of gumption and fortitude within the trading community there.
After going through the furnishings section of the market, we made our way past hundreds of second-hand clothing stalls to the fish market. The vehicle we were travelling in inched its way down to the fish market, with both sides of the muddy road teeming with second hand clothing stalls. Other traders, who were not fortunate to have the “formal” wood and iron sheet stalls, displayed their wares on plastic sheets by the roadside leaving only enough space for one vehicle and thousands of pedestrians to navigate their way.
We smelt the fish market before we saw it. Mary (not her real name) our fish trader came up to guide us to where to park. The piquant aroma of deep fried fish imbued the air as we walked to Mary’s corner.
She tells us that the fish market was built in 1964 by the Nairobi City Council with only 24 stalls. Today it houses over a thousand fish traders who have occupied every single inch of space inside and outside the market. We see tilapia, nile perch and cat fish in both cooked and uncooked forms piled high on rickety wooden display frames. Fish is openly fried in deep metal karais on charcoal stoves with one trader loudly cautioning us “chunga mafuta, hapa hakuna insurance.”
Once we sat down inside a stall that Mary has sub-let, she brings us up to speed on the current issues in the fish market. “I have been in the business for 17 years. It’s a good business, but in the last four years our market has been flooded by Chinese fish.” She has brought two samples of Kenyan tilapia and the Chinese variant. “You see this one?” she thrusts the darker, smaller version at our faces. “This is the Chinese tilapia. It goes for Sh150 while the Kenyan one goes for Sh450. But you know what, cheap is expensive!”
Mary uttered a snort of derision and continued. “Tell me how my fish cannot stay more than two days without spoiling, yet the Chinese fish in the market right now comes here in boxes marked with an expiry date of 2020. What kind of chemicals do they put in fish that makes them expire in two years?”
She however recognises that the government ban on imported fish which had been issued a few days earlier, will go a long way in restoring the Kenyan fishing industry value chain that was starting to be destroyed.
Mary is rabidly nationalistic and says with the right infrastructural support, the local fish industry can cater to local demand. We attacked our lunch with much relish, washing it down with nothing but hope as it was very apparent that bathroom facilities would be an interesting experience that we were not ready to deal with.
From the fish market we moved to “Kachonga”, an area in Shauri Moyo that is close to Gikomba. Here over 600 wood carvers from Kenya and a few from Congo sit in iron sheet covered and wood framed stalls sculpting wood figurines for the tourist market. The same script prevails here: a poverty of infrastructure but an abundance of business zeal. We hopped, skipped and jumped around the muddy puddles, where again the traders covered their raw wood materials with plastic paper. Their cheery disposition belied their infrastructural woes but just like the Gikomba traders, the sculptors have self-organised into a trading community complete with a permanent structure of a showroom where orders can be placed. Across the markets we walked in, we saw nothing but innovation, strength of character and a dogged determination to do business under very difficult circumstances.
These markets are cash economies, with the whole working capital cycle represented there. Raw material suppliers, value addition conversion into manufactured goods and then the ultimate customers all in one region. It is an area ripe for trade finance innovation from the financial sector that has traditionally looked at more formally structured businesses that operate within concrete walls and tiled roofs.
But all that would need to be backstopped by infrastructural support from the county government that would enable the traders to house their wares securely, operate in a sanitary environment and permit delivery of goods and services (including fire engines for the now ubiquitous Gikomba fires) via an all-weather road network. Creating such a conducive environment ultimately yields the added benefits of an attractive wider taxation bracket.
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Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
